| 2018 | A High-Throughput Screening Approach To Repurpose FDA-Approved Drugs for Bactericidal Applications against Staphylococcus aureus Small-Colony Variants. | mSphere | Drug repurposing offers an expedited and economical route to develop new clinical therapeutics in comparison to traditional drug development. Growth-based high-throughput screening is concomitant with drug repurposing and enables rapid identification of new therapeutic uses for investigated drugs; however, this traditional method is not compatible with microorganisms with abnormal growth patterns such as small-colony variants (SCV). SCV subpopulations are auxotrophic for key compounds in biosynthetic pathways, which result in low growth rate. SCV formation is also associated with reduced antibiotic susceptibility, and the SCV's ability to revert to the normal cell growth state is thought to contribute to recurrence of infections. Thus, there is a critical need to identify antimicrobial agents that are potent against SCV in order to effectively treat chronic infections. Accordingly, here we describe adapting an adenylate kinase (AK)-based cell death reporter assay to identify members of a Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drug library that display bactericidal activity against SCV. Four library members, daunorubicin, Ketoconazole, rifapentine, and sitafloxacin, exhibited potent SCV bactericidal activity against a stable SCV. Further investigation showed that sitafloxacin was potent against methicillin-susceptible and -resistant , as well as within an established biofilm. Taken together, these results demonstrate the ability to use the AK assay to screen small-molecule libraries for SCV bactericidal agents and highlight the therapeutic potential of sitafloxacin to be repurposed to treat chronic infections associated with SCV and/or biofilm growth states. Conventional antibiotics fail to successfully treat chronic osteomyelitis, endocarditis, and device-related and airway infections. These recurring infections are associated with the emergence of SCV, which are recalcitrant to conventional antibiotics. Studies have investigated antibiotic therapies to treat SCV-related infections but have had little success, emphasizing the need to identify novel antimicrobial drugs. However, drug discovery is a costly and time-consuming process. An alternative strategy is drug repurposing, which could identify FDA-approved and well-characterized drugs that could have off-label utility in treating SCV. In this study, we adapted a high-throughput AK-based assay to identify 4 FDA-approved drugs, daunorubicin, Ketoconazole, rifapentine, and sitafloxacin, which display antimicrobial activity against SCV, suggesting an avenue for drug repurposing in order to effectively treat SCV-related infections. Additionally, this screening paradigm can easily be adapted for other drug/chemical libraries to identify compounds bactericidal against SCV. |
| 2018 | A human xenobiotic nuclear receptor contributes to nonresponsiveness of to the antituberculosis drug rifampicin. | J Biol Chem | is the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB). It acquires phenotypic drug resistance inside macrophages, and this resistance mainly arises from host-induced stress. However, whether cellular drug-efflux mechanisms in macrophages contribute to nonresponsiveness of to anti-TB drugs is unclear. Here, we report that xenobiotic nuclear receptors mediate TB drug nonresponsiveness by modulating drug-efflux transporters in macrophages. This was evident from expression analysis of drug-efflux transporters in macrophages isolated from TB patients. Among patients harboring rifampicin-susceptible we observed increased intracellular survival of upon rifampicin treatment of macrophages isolated from patients not responding to anti-TB drugs compared with macrophages from patients who did respond. Of note, infection and rifampicin exposure synergistically modulated macrophage drug-efflux transporters We also found that the xenobiotic nuclear receptor pregnane X receptor (PXR) modulates macrophage drug-efflux transporter expression and activity, which compromised the anti-TB efficacy of rifampicin. We further validated this finding in a TB mouse model in which use of the PXR antagonist Ketoconazole rescued rifampicin anti-TB activity. We conclude that PXR activation in macrophages compromises the efficacy of the anti-TB drug rifampicin. Alternative therapeutic strategies, such as use of the rifampicin derivatives rifapentine and rifabutin, which do not activate PXR, or of a PXR antagonist, may be effective for tackling drug nonresponsiveness of that arises from drug-efflux systems of the host. |
| 2014 | Bedaquiline: a review of human pharmacokinetics and drug-drug interactions. | J Antimicrob Chemother | Bedaquiline has recently been approved for the treatment of pulmonary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) as part of combination therapy in adults. It is metabolized primarily by the cytochrome P450 isoenzyme 3A4 (CYP3A4) to a less-active N-monodesmethyl metabolite. Phase I and Phase II studies in healthy subjects and patients with drug-susceptible or multidrug-resistant TB have assessed the pharmacokinetics and drug-drug interaction profile of bedaquiline. Potential interactions have been assessed between bedaquiline and first- and second-line anti-TB drugs (rifampicin, rifapentine, isoniazid, pyrazinamide, ethambutol, kanamycin, ofloxacin and cycloserine), commonly used antiretroviral agents (lopinavir/ritonavir, nevirapine and efavirenz) and a potent CYP3A inhibitor (Ketoconazole). This review summarizes the pharmacokinetic profile of bedaquiline as well as the results of the drug-drug interaction studies. |